Lawrence O'Donnell Gets MSNBC's 10PM Gig

Longtime MSNBC talking head Lawrence O’Donnell is about to get his own show at 10pm, replacing the rerun of Keith Olbermann’s Countdown that’s been following Rachel Maddow. “I’ve had a part-time job at MSNBC for 14 years,” O’Donnell said in a statement. “Now that the network and I have gotten to know each other, I’m thrilled to be going full time.”

MSNBC stopped looking for a 10pm host back in March 2009, because Olbermann’s rerun was performing so well, the Huffington Post notes, adding that as recently as April, O’Donnell said that he considered MSNBC a “hobby.” O'Donnell, a former West Wing writer, noted then that the network was so small that “people treat with great seriousness ratings fluctuations roughly equal to the number of people who would go to the bathroom during a West Wing episode.” (More Lawrence O'Donnell stories.)